One of the famous artists in the field of contemporary art is Damien Hirst. He is a known entrepreneur, art collector and artist. He is considered to be the most prominent member of the Young British Artists, a known group of visual artists in United Kingdom. Damien Hirst is also considered to be the richest living artist in United Kingdom and has an estimated wealth of £215 million in 2010.
Damien Hirst was born in Bristol and grew up to be a troubled child and have been involved in shoplifting, which led him to be arrested twice. Although a troubled child, he has shown interests in drawing and arts in a young age. Damien Hirst’s mother supported his desire and interests ine arts.
Damien Hirst’s works are focused on death. Among his artworks with death-themed were series of depicted dead animals such as a sheep, shark and a cow. These dead animals are preserved well and have been treated with formaldehyde and told be dissected as well.
One of the artworks that Damien Hirst is most famous for is The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. It is a body of a 14-foot tiger shark that has been submerged in formaldehyde inside a clear glass display case. Aside from this enormous tiger shark display, he also created “spin paintings,” of which the paintings are on a spinning circular surface.
Damien Hirst is also known for his classic skull sculpture For the Love of God. The skull was an 18th-century, which Damien Hirst bought in a shop in Islington. The skull has been encrusted with 8,601 pieces of diamonds that includes a pear-shape huge diamond at the center of the forehead. Aside from the diamonds, the skull is platinum-casted. Perhaps what makes it more unique and truly a great work of art is the skull’s real and original set of teeth.
This Damien Hirst’s work of art has been told to have been sold for £50 million, which makes it the most expensive work of a living artist.
Of course, the fame for Damien Hirst was never a walk in the park. Perhaps what made his success easier was his connection to Charles Saatchi, a famous businessman and an advertising magnate who is a great supporter of the Young British Artists. Because of Charles Saatchi’s love for art and his love of collecting it, he encouraged and supported Damien Hirst in everything.
However, in spite of Damien Hirst’s success, there were also bashers and people who questioned his works and accused him of plagiarism. Even his artworks of dead animals have also been questioned and criticized.
To this day, Damien Hirst has been actively creating different pieces of art. Damien Hirst is actively helping and supporting different charities through his artworks. Aside from Damien Hirst’s art exhibitions in the United Kingdom, he also travels to the different parts of the world to showcase his works of art.

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Spots Car Painting. This was Hirst’s first collaborative work, painted for the Aids charity Crusaid. Paul Simonon was an art student in the mid-1970s before leaving to play bass guitar for the punk band The Clash. Since the demise of The Clash in 1984 he has become a full-time painter. Simonon painted the Citroën car and Hirst added his trademark spots over the top. Hirst has produced a series of spot paintings, featuring spots of regular size and distribution, painted on canvases of different shapes and sizes.